Benitez defends Bremen approach

Rafa Benitez has brushed off Inter Milan’s 3-0 loss at Werder Bremen, citing inexperience and the Club World Cup as mitigating factors.

Benitez fielded an inexperienced line-up for Inter’s final Champions League group fixture on Tuesday, despite the top spot in Group A still being up for grabs.

With a win, Inter could have taken the easier ride through the knockout stages with a win over Werder, given Tottenham drew 3-3 at Twente.

But the Italian champions carried their poor league form into Europe and slumped to a 3-0 loss to the previously winless Bundesliga outfit.

Benitez, who has come under fire at the San Siro after leading Inter to three losses in their past four Serie A fixtures, was indifferent after the loss.

“The crucial game for us was the one against Twente two weeks ago when we booked our place in the knockout stage,” Benitez said.

“Losing 1-0, 2-0 or 3-0 today made no difference. We have several players on the sidelines right now and we wanted to avoid other injuries.”

“We are fully convinced that our season will soon reach a turning point and everything will improve.”

“When quality players like Julio Cesar, (Diego) Milito, Maicon and many others return, it’s going to be a completely different story.”

The Spanish manager, who will now lead Inter into the knockout stages against the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, said he was pleased with the efforts of his younger players.

“On the eve of the game we knew we had to win and hope for a bad result for Tottenham,” he said.

“We were fully aware that it was difficult to finish first in the group – we took the chance to give a few young players an important experience.”

“I’m very satisfied with their performance; they proved to be mature enough to play at this level.”

“The Club World Cup is an important objective, so it’s normal that some players were already thinking about that.”

Werder manager Thomas Schaaf was thrilled his side could sign off on their European campaign with their first win of the group stages, and said the challenge now was to carry that positivity into their domestic campaign.

“This win was worth a lot, as we did what we intended to do,” Schaaf said.

“There were three goals to celebrate and we delivered; we wanted to bid farewell with a good performance, we wanted to play good football and wanted to gain self-confidence.”

“There were some good signs today – it was important for every player to notice things are going forward. We want to continue playing like we did today.”

“I especially liked the fact that we kept attacking in the second half. I don’t want to single out any player; all of them tried today. We scored some beautiful goals, so it is good that so many players played a part.”

“We now have two matches left (this year) to prove ourselves. It is good that we now travel to the league leaders (Borussia Dortmund) feeling confident, but Dortmund will definitely ask more of us than Inter did today.”